Wednesday, July 13, 2011

This morning I noticed everyone attractive had left Manhattan for the summer, so I thought it'd be a fine time to see the Alexander McQueen show. Sadly, it wasn't. There were eight thousand unattractive people in line, not one with sleeves or long pants. Really, if we hadn't been in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you'd have thought they were waiting to ride the Zipper at the carnival in a church parking lot. These were fashionistas? I didn't get it. I mean, you don't munch on Cheetos while you're waiting for your table at Le Cirque.

The clothes were gorgeous from far away, but a real disappointment up close. From a distance they're gorgeous, and scary, and bizarre. A few steps closer and you can see the eight million little stitches that made some sweet old French lady go blind. You wonder why. You imagine conversation with a regular woman as opposed to one in McQueen:

REGULAR WOMAN: I work for a company that facilitates funding for low-cost housing.

WOMAN IN MCQUEEN: It's Alexander McQueen. Isn't it fabulous? It's made of taffeta, fox fur, and pharmaceutial waste.

Aside from being freaky small, the clothes weren't as bizarre as the tabloids tell it: take the Mohawks and S&M masks off the mannequins and you've got something Reese Witherspoon would wear. And as for the music, well, John Williams? Really? Isn't he pretty much the opposite of Alexander McQ? It's pitiful how the Met panders to the lowest common denominator. If the clothes are too strange for you, well, here's a tune by the guy who wrote the music for E. T.

I tried to understand the clothing, but I fell sadly short. If you want to do art, do art. Don't glue it on top of a barn and pretend it's useful now that it's a weather vane. And I realized something that I think every man gets at some point in his life: I don't care if it's ironic, laconic, sarcastic or sardonic, if you're wearing a dress with a bustle you're an idiot. Really, these things were to clothes like The Ace of Cake's works are to food. I'll certainly applaud that giant frog covered in frosting that you bring to my birthday party, but when I cut into it and discover it's all plywood and PVC pipe I'm going to put you atop a real cake and set your ass on fire.

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